Gorky Park (Volume 1): Martin Cruz Smith (The Arkady Renko Novels)

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This is probably my most favorite "detective" novel read to date, because it is so much more than a mystery--it is really a masterfully written, poignant, cynical, realistic, and all-too-palpable portrayal of life behind the Iron Curtain. Having been born and raised in this part of the world before 1989, I almost cannot believe how well an American author was able to capture the dreary, corrupt, existentially-dispiriting and hopeless atmosphere of the era, without moralizing and without futile and inapt comparisons to a cheery, hopeful, democratic "west". In fact, Cruz Smith manages to draw parallels between the two as equally corrupt, and oppressive - in their own ways.

One of the best things about Smith’s book is his portrait of the Soviet bureaucracy: suspicious and hypocritical, deceptive and self-deceptive, filled with outmoded beliefs and threadbare traditions, always ready to betray the loyal and the naive for the good of “the institution.” Now what exactly did Smith’s description of this society remind me of? The Republican Party? The Roman Catholic Church? Yes, of course, those too, but they weren’t exactly the institutions I was thinking of. And then it hit me: Smith’s Soviet Union reminded me of John le Carre’s “The Circus,” his fictionalized portrait of British Intelligence in the post WW II world. See, Carolyn, Washington Post (September 3, 2010). "Three Stations," the new thriller by Martin Cruz Smith, author of "Gorky Park" Our button-down management was then, as now, infiltrated by Me-Gen Bright Young Things, though I guess the bright kids now are products of a sleek, Can-Do Millennial education, beavering away at purging dark information.

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Arkady's problems escalate when his partner is shot to death investigating Davidova's apartment, and Kirwill's elder brother William, a detective with the New York City Police Department who speaks fluent Russian, arrives in Moscow intending to find and kill his brother's murderer. Arkady tries to discover as much as he can from Kirwill to confirm the corpse's identity, without admitting that he suspects Osborne. Interrogation is largely a process of rebirth done in the clumsiest fashion possible, a system in which the midwife attempts to deliver the same baby a dozen times in a dozen different ways."

In explaining how he came up with smuggled icons for the motivation to murder, Arkady says that it's about Marxist dialectic: "We are now in an intermediate stage of communism where there are still criminal tendencies resulting from relics of capitalism in the minds of some individuals. What more obvious relic than an ikon?" (then he goes on to point out that material evidence also points to ikon smuggling). This novel was originally published in 1981. Almost 36 years ago. I believe that I attempted to read the book once before, perhaps shortly after it's publication, but did not finish. I wish I had read it then. Reading it today I find it is dated. The author demonstrated talent in describing scenes in the story whether it is in Moscow, a Russian dacha, or a dingy New York hotel room you could visualize it and feel as though you were right there. What I found difficult to believe was the level of corruption and conspiracy. Basically everyone. While recovering in the hospital under armed guard, the KGB interrogates Arkady. From their questions, Arkady infers that Iamskoy was a KGB agent planted to spy on the militsiya. Once Arkady recovers, he is delivered to a KGB general who explains everything and offers him a deal. The three murder victims weren't helping Osborne build a piece of furniture, they were helping him trap live sables for illegal import into the United States. Rather than help the trio defect, Osborne killed them. The FBI reaches an agreement with the KGB: Osborne will release the sables if Arkady is delivered to Osborne in the United States. He is called to Gorky park, a popular spot, where an unusually mild April has brought on an early thaw in the snow, revealing of the bodies of two men and a woman, all shot through the chest at close range and the two men in the head. Their faces had been erased and fingertips chopped off to hamper identification. Arkady is used to handling homicides resulting from drunkenness, and these murders have the hallmarks of a state-sanctioned assassination. But before he can secure the area Major Pribluda of the KGB arrives, contaminating the crime scene. The two men have crossed before. Martin Cruz Smith, born Martin William Smith (November 3, 1942) is an American writer of mystery and suspense fiction, mostly in an international or historical setting. He is best known for his ten-novel series (to date) on Russian investigator Arkady Renko, introduced in 1981 with Gorky Park. The tenth book in the series, Independence Square, was published in May 2023.The Washington Post said of Gorky Park that "More perhaps than any other recent work of American fiction, this one conveys a feeling for the Soviet Union, its capital, its moods ands its people." [5] The New York Times said the Gorky Park "reminds you just how satisfying a smoothly turned thriller can be." [6] But Smith has always had a strong interest in writing fiction that crosses cultural boundaries – his early writings included a series of mystery novels that featured a Romani or “gypsy” art dealer turned detective – and Gorky Park certainly follows in that tradition.

Despite being born into the nomenklatura himself, Arkady exposes corruption and dishonesty on the part of influential and well-protected members of the elite, regardless of the consequences. This rebounds on him when his own superior, Iamskoy, and his best friend, a lawyer named Misha, are both revealed to be working with Osborne. Arkady flees a meeting with Misha before a gang of killers arrive, but is too late to prevent Iamskoy from appropriating the reconstructed head and destroying it. There's this concept in fantasy writing, world-building? Sci-fi too. It's pretty self-explanatory: because these books are not taking place in our universe, it's up to the author to give us all the details -- to paint the picture, provide shading in just the right places, ensure we can tell what we are supposed to be looking at. Economics, politics, interpersonal relations, language, gender roles, humor... This can be done well, emphasizing just here and embellishing just there, so the empty spaces also fill in the canvas. Or it can be done poorly, cramming in everything, and we wind up with Where's Waldo, and no one can figure out what the hell is happening. Martin Cruz Smith is a really good world-builder. I mean, he's writing about a real place, but it doesn't exist anymore, as such, so I don't think that makes his job any easier. Osnos, Peter (March 29, 1981). "Three Faceless Corpses". Washington Post . Retrieved 13 March 2023.Canto for a Gypsy, Smith's third novel overall and the second to feature Roman Grey, a gypsy art dealer in New York City, was nominated for an Edgar Award. [6] Nightwing (1977), also an Edgar nominee, was his breakthrough novel, and he adapted it for a feature film of the same name (1979).